College kickstart

[Anonymous]

Anyone from a private school that uses this that has found it helpful? Is it really "just" the weighted GPA issue that makes it give nothing valuable back? Or is there some other place to enter other information that we've missed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following..... my DC tried to use this and schools listed do not align (at all!) to experience of current Senior peers at school with similar stats/Ec's.

How so?

I haven't seen it myself, but it the impression I got was something like:

"I feel like I am doing something wrong in College Kickstart because every school is giving me the same low chance of being admitted, whether it be a Top20 school or a school outside of T100."

My thoughts were like OP....is there something else you haven't filled in yet?? ...so following this thread with interest to pass onto DC.

Yes this, it gives really strange groupings of schools, where you will have a bunch of schools ranked in the 20s as targets and then a school ranked 80.

[Anonymous]

So I've used kickstart with my older DC (now a college freshman) and am just starting to use it with my younger DC, now a high school junior.

it's supposed to help your kid build a balanced college list by incorporating the school's historical data, then telling you if you've got too many reaches, or out of reach schools (unlikely) etc.

OP, if your high school's kickstart is only using unweighted GPAs, it's because your high school set it up like that. Our high school shifted from weighted to unweighted GPAs, so with my older DC, we used weighted, and the younger DC we are using unweighted.

I think you have to recognize its limitations. First, the numbers don't take into account if prior students had hooks or not (or, if your kid has a hook or not).

Second, I don't think it takes into account if these prior kids were accepted ED or RD. For instance, my older DC goes to College X, and from our high school, no one gets into College X on RD. So, if you don't know that, and you put College X on your list, but not as your #1, it may look like your kid has a good chance, but they don't.

So the way to use it, I think, is to come up with some sort of list that is balanced, and then discuss it with your school's college counselor to see how to tweak it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone familiar with this website? Our school uses to generate lists but seems of limited utility since it uses unweighted gpa and does not otherwise account for level of rigor, and not school specific for historical admissions. Maybe I am missing something about its value?

OMG. Nobody uses weighted GPAs - colleges certainly don’t. It’s worthless. Nothing above 4.0 matters. Are you unaware that how some grades are given additional points isn’t even the same in some states amongst different county school systems? And the best privates and boarding schools don’t add extra weight to grades in honors/AP/advanced classes at all? Weighted GPAs are a ridiculous gimmick of pretentious suburban public schools.

Cite your source. My understanding is that the use of weighted GPA varies from one college to another, and my source of information is the colleges themselves, who I meet with frequently as part of my job.

[Anonymous]

Bumping this up.

How accurate was college kickstart for your kids and their list? At a private school with an unweighted GPA and it seems to give everything a very low probability, regardless of the ranking.

Even schools that are very easy to get into, it gives a pretty low probability.

[Anonymous]

What is more accurate?

College kickstart or Naviance?

[Anonymous]

kickstart is worthless. You are better off looking at common data set.

[Anonymous]

We used it as a tool to get a balanced list.
For some schools Kickstart was more conservative than Naviance. For example - 99% of applicants from our high school get accepted to Temple. My DC is right smack in the middle of Temple applicants from our high school and Kickstart had it as a Target - but we thought it was a likely.

On the other hand, BU is a school that our high school does not have a strong track record for getting students accepted. My DC Naviance point is not near anyone that has gotten accepted - but Kickstart has it as a Reach as opposed to an Unlikely.

For our family - it was another tool to look at in the process.
This weekend we will hear from 2 schools. Kickstart profile - one reach and one likely
Naviance profile (from the overview page)- Match and Safety
I will report back .....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone familiar with this website? Our school uses to generate lists but seems of limited utility since it uses unweighted gpa and does not otherwise account for level of rigor, and not school specific for historical admissions. Maybe I am missing something about its value?

OMG. Nobody uses weighted GPAs - colleges certainly don’t. It’s worthless. Nothing above 4.0 matters. Are you unaware that how some grades are given additional points isn’t even the same in some states amongst different county school systems? And the best privates and boarding schools don’t add extra weight to grades in honors/AP/advanced classes at all? Weighted GPAs are a ridiculous gimmick of pretentious suburban public schools.

Can you stop commenting this on every thread. Thanks.

I’ll stop posting it when people stop acting like GPAs over 4.0 are real and meaningful. Post the real GPA and # of honors/AP classes but enough with the lame weighted crap.

None of us care, we just ignore you. Rigor of coursework is definitely something schools consider.

Of course Colleges consider rigor - as part of the overall application - but they throw out weighted GPAs and only factor GPAs on the standard 4.0 scale. Colleges also dont use weighted GPAs in their published numbers. Ya know why? Because only losers who are insecure about where their kid goes to school drone on and on about it.

UVA and W&M both published 4.4 average GPA of incoming freshmen in their CDS, so they are using some kind of weighting. It’s probably not what the high schools use, and may not even be the same between them, but I feel pretty confident colleges do weight certain classes more.

And yet many Ivies and top 10 report 3.9 average. These schools obviously are reporting unweighted GPAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We used it as a tool to get a balanced list.
For some schools Kickstart was more conservative than Naviance. For example - 99% of applicants from our high school get accepted to Temple. My DC is right smack in the middle of Temple applicants from our high school and Kickstart had it as a Target - but we thought it was a likely.

On the other hand, BU is a school that our high school does not have a strong track record for getting students accepted. My DC Naviance point is not near anyone that has gotten accepted - but Kickstart has it as a Reach as opposed to an Unlikely.

For our family - it was another tool to look at in the process.
This weekend we will hear from 2 schools. Kickstart profile - one reach and one likely
Naviance profile (from the overview page)- Match and Safety
I will report back .....

Please do!!

[Anonymous]

Have you tried College Vine? Hiw dies it compare to kickstarter? I felt like College Vine gave reasonable recos.

[Anonymous]

does

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used it as a tool to get a balanced list.
For some schools Kickstart was more conservative than Naviance. For example - 99% of applicants from our high school get accepted to Temple. My DC is right smack in the middle of Temple applicants from our high school and Kickstart had it as a Target - but we thought it was a likely.

On the other hand, BU is a school that our high school does not have a strong track record for getting students accepted. My DC Naviance point is not near anyone that has gotten accepted - but Kickstart has it as a Reach as opposed to an Unlikely.

For our family - it was another tool to look at in the process.
This weekend we will hear from 2 schools. Kickstart profile - one reach and one likely
Naviance profile (from the overview page)- Match and Safety
I will report back .....

Please do!!

2 acceptances!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used it as a tool to get a balanced list.
For some schools Kickstart was more conservative than Naviance. For example - 99% of applicants from our high school get accepted to Temple. My DC is right smack in the middle of Temple applicants from our high school and Kickstart had it as a Target - but we thought it was a likely.

On the other hand, BU is a school that our high school does not have a strong track record for getting students accepted. My DC Naviance point is not near anyone that has gotten accepted - but Kickstart has it as a Reach as opposed to an Unlikely.

For our family - it was another tool to look at in the process.
This weekend we will hear from 2 schools. Kickstart profile - one reach and one likely
Naviance profile (from the overview page)- Match and Safety
I will report back .....

Please do!!

2 acceptances!

So naviance more accurate?

Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used it as a tool to get a balanced list.
For some schools Kickstart was more conservative than Naviance. For example - 99% of applicants from our high school get accepted to Temple. My DC is right smack in the middle of Temple applicants from our high school and Kickstart had it as a Target - but we thought it was a likely.

On the other hand, BU is a school that our high school does not have a strong track record for getting students accepted. My DC Naviance point is not near anyone that has gotten accepted - but Kickstart has it as a Reach as opposed to an Unlikely.

For our family - it was another tool to look at in the process.
This weekend we will hear from 2 schools. Kickstart profile - one reach and one likely
Naviance profile (from the overview page)- Match and Safety
I will report back .....

Please do!!

2 acceptances!

So naviance more accurate?
Congrats!

Naviance had it as a match / Kickstart as a reach.
Got accepted - but reaches are things that you might get accepted to.
The reach was ED - so we are out will not not have any more data.